


Timeless

by yespolkadot_kitty



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Romance, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-12
Updated: 2016-01-14
Packaged: 2018-05-13 10:56:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5705005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yespolkadot_kitty/pseuds/yespolkadot_kitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Let me get this straight," Mike began. "One of our people - you think - broke in here and hid in your bedroom, naked, then tried to attack you with an improvised weapon, kissed you against your will, and what did you do? You gave him tea?" </p><p>--------<br/>A time travel romantic comedy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> All mistakes regarding the time period or similar are mine and mine alone. I'm writing this for fun at the moment.

 

_Northern Brittania_

 

This wasn’t just any simple sickness, Caderyn the Younger, son of the Chieftain, thought bitterly as the sun shone down, relentless, the happy yellow globe mocking the plight of the kin he loved and had grown up with.

This was a plague sent from the Gods.

Somehow Caderyn and his people had angered their Gods, and in response, those above had speared weakness into the villagers, Even Caderyn’s father, Caderyn the Elder, had succumbed to extreme tiredness, his face pale and wan. Once a strong Chieftain,   guiding his people in their daily lives, he and the others now complained of head pain and difficulty breathing.

With his father out of action, and more people falling ill to the Gods’ will every day, the burden of finding a cure had settled on Caderyn’s shoulders.

“Kit!”

He turned at the nickname his mother, Brigata, had bestowed upon him to differentiate him to his father, and saw her striding towards him, her broad face stretched tight with worry. He held out an arm and she welcomed his embrace.

“Where are you going?”

“To the wise woman.” Kenna lived at the edge of their village in a small cave by the waterfall where Kit’s people got all of their water for washing and cooking from. She had helped Kit’s father on many occasions in exchange for a share of their food, and an occasional fur to keep her warm on cold nights. “I’m hoping she can tell me why we’ve angered the Gods.” He hefted the deerskin he had tanned this morning. “I’ve brought this to bribe her with.”

Brigata slipped out from under his arm. “If you think that will help.”

“It has to.” As he walked through their village, past thatched roundhouses, some with dogs lazing outside gnawing on bones, his  heart staggered at the lack of activity. On a fine afternoon like this, women carried their looms outside and wove clothing in the sunshine. Men sparred with their young boys, teaching them fighting skills for all life’s battles.

But instead only a few, sickly-looking children sat making daisy chains, and hardly speaking.

Gone even was the song of hammer on iron as the blacksmith worked, as he, too had fallen prey to the curse of the Gods.

Kit could only pray that Kenna would have the answers he and his people so desperately needed.

“Shall I come with you?” Brigata asked, fear shadowing her face, the face that had loved and nurtured him as a young boy, and which counselled him still.

Kit set his hands on her small shoulders. She only reached his chest now, which still amused him – as a boy he had looked up to her as a deer does to a tree. “No. Stay here and care for the sick. The children may not have any supper to eat if their parents are unable to bake bread.”

“Be safe,” Brigata warned him, and hurried off to check the food supplies and the ongoing health of the villagers confined to their roundhouse dwellings.

After watching her go for a few moments, Kit headed out of the enclosed village and towards the waterfall. Before too long, the rushing of the freshwater reached his ears. The long grasses of Summer brushed against his woollen trousers as he walked, and the clear blue sky above seemed to mock the fate of his people.

Determined, his mouth set in a grim line, Kit reached the waterfall and threaded through the copse of tall trees which shielded Kenna’s cave.

The rocks outside her lair were slick with spray from the waterfall, and Kit reached out for handholds as he made his way down the makeshift rock steps into the mouth of the cave. The smell of herbs washed over him as the cave swallowed him whole, the bright light from the world beyond retreating. He shifted the heavy tanned hide to his other shoulder.

“Kenna? Are you there, wise woman?”

As his eyes adjusted to the darkness within the cave, Kit’s gaze darted around the walls. Furs had been placed on the cave floor, preserving what heat there was to be had. Water flowed somewhere distantly, and Kit recalled Brigata telling him a mouth to a deep pool hid somewhere in the cave; most likely the source of Kenna’s water.

“Who’s there?”

Kit heard the tapping of wood on rock before he saw her. She appeared more heavily stooped than before, bent over like a shepherd’s crook, her head bowed from the ravage of age. When she finally reached him, a tiny thing draped in faded woollen cloth secured with tiny gold wrought brooches, she looked up into his face, and he saw that the Gods had stolen her sight, and her eyes gazed up unseeing at him, milky and pale blue, like a winter’s sky.

Having not seen her for years, the change startled Kit, but he tamped down on his surprise.

Kenna poked him with her stick, jabbing his leg dead-on. “What’s the matter boy? Never seen a blind woman before?”

Kit couldn’t help but smile. He should have known that the Gods could give as well as take; and that there were other ways to see without eyes.

“Apologies. I am Caderyn the Younger-”

“I know who you are well enough. Brigata’s boy. They call you Kit.” She sniffed. “Handsome, aren’t you. You’ve certainly grown tall. What do you want?”

Kit raised his brows. What else could she infer just from standing near him? No wonder the Gods had taken Kenna’s eyes; she hardly needed them.

He pushed the deerskin towards her. Her free hand reached out and stroked it, the papery skin on her fingers and thumb illuminated by what little light filtered into the cave from outside, veins standing out in stark relief, the same watery azure as her sightless eyes.

“It’s payment enough,” she grunted. “You’ve come to ask about the sickness in the village.”

Anger burned in Kit’s stomach. He pulled the deerskin away. “If you already know, why haven’t you done anything?”

Kenna’s face showed no sign of shock or anger at his demand. She poked him again with her stick. “If the Gods will it, boy, who I am to stand in their path? I couldn’t stop them taking my eyes, could I, now.” It wasn’t a question.

His gaze raked over her. “You don’t seem to need them.”

Kenna’s raspy chuckle bounded around the cave. “There’s hope for you yet, my boy. I have something which will help your people, but you must trust me.”

Feeling the hairs on the back of his neck lift, Kit followed her deeper into the cave. “I’m here, aren’t I?” he grumbled. Droplets of water from the cave ceiling dampened the back of his neck.

As he watched, Kenna led him down two stone steps and knelt by the edge of a pool. In the dim light, the water looked almost black, and deep enough to swallow the sun.

She dipped her arm into the pool, and Kit resisted the urge to hold her back from the lapping edge of the water. Kenna had lived in this cave all her life, as far as he knew; she seemed unlikely to fall in now.

Finally she stood awkwardly, before using her stick to right herself. Something flashed in her hand, and impatience clawed its way through Kit as she led him back to the gaping maw of the cave, where the sunlight reached, and where he saw what she had retrieved.

Kenna held a golden torque in her hand. Rays of sunlight bounced off the expertly forged ring which formed the main part of the adornment. Hoops of gold, which would lay upon the wearer’s collarbone, shone even in the darkness of the cave. Not even Kit’s father had anything this fine.

Strange symbols had been etched on the main body of the torque. Kit couldn’t understand them.

Kenna proffered the piece to him. “You owe me a deerskin, boy.”

They exchanged, and Kit felt the weight of the torque in his hands. “What am I supposed to do with this? Sell it for a cure? The traders aren’t due for another month.”

“Wear it,” Kenna commanded. “Wear it and the Gods will heed your prayers. It will lead you to the man who yearns to be like one of us.” She settled the tanned deerskin on her bony shoulder, and frowned. “I grow weary of chatter. Be gone to your village.”

“I don’t understand,” Kit countered, but she had started to walk back into the cave, the darkness swallowing her. He called after her, but she either ignored him or did not hear, because she didn’t turn back.

Eventually her thick rope of white hair was swallowed totally by the darkness.

Kit scowled at the heavy torque. He had seen few things of such beauty, but beauty wouldn’t save his people.

Even so, as he exited the cave, and the bright sunshine played along the inscription marring the smooth golden skin of the torque, hope lightened his heart. Maybe it would work.

He had no other options.

 

 **** 

 

 

Later, after seeing to his father and reassuring Brigata about his visit to Kenna, Kit lay down on his hay bed. His father had been moved into a separate roundhouse to stop the spread of sickness to his wife and son, and Brigata had chosen to sleep with some distressed children tonight to ease their torment over sick parents and siblings.

Kit had the roundhouse to himself.  He stretched out on the mattress, savouring the feel of the soft wolf’s pelt against his naked skin. The heat of the day and the still-warm fire in the centre of the dwelling made clothing unnecessary.

He turned and watched the fire burn itself down to embers. The delicious scent of roasted rabbit lingered from where Brigata had cooked the evening meal, enjoyed with herbed bread and wild garlic.

Lifting the torque from the earthen, rush-strewn floor, Kit examined it in the dying light from the central fire. Its weight was pleasing. He ran his fingertips across the etchings, still wondering what they meant. He had yet to don it.

“Time to either heed Kenna or watch my people die,” he muttered to himself. Gently, he pulled at each gold hoop until the gap between them was such that he could slide it on to his neck sideways. The gold felt cold against his bare skin. Turning the torque, he set the hoops to rest on his collarbone.

The etchings on the neck loop seemed to press against his skin, itching, burning. Or was that just his imagination?

Cursing the moment he’d decided to seek out a blind woman for help, Kit turned over and tried to sleep, the distant bark of a dog, the conversation of nearby cattle, and the crackle of fire embers the only sounds.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two things happened at once.  
> Her phone stopped ringing.  
> She saw a naked man standing in front of her bed, wielding a poster tube as if it were a sword.

Just outside York, present day

Meg shut the doors of the booking office after another busy day filled with noisy but enthusiastic schoolchildren. After the excitement of today’s Celtic battle demonstration, she felt more than ready to collapse into bed – maybe after a long bath and some time with her good friends, Mr red wine and Mrs dark chocolate.  
Feet aching, she checked that the cash drawers were locked and that the windows had been secured, then, as she always did, she took the long way through the building up to her apartment, so she could pass the small exhibition of Celtic artefacts which she and her business partner, Mike, owned.  
After studying archaeology together in University, Meg and Mike had discovered a shared love of Iron Age Britain in the period shortly before the Roman invasion.   
After a few years of running school workshops on Iron Age cooking, weaving and fighting, they had applied to the local arts council for funding to set up Meet the Celts, their own Iron Age village-cum-museum, welcoming both school groups and tourists alike.   
Two evenings a week, they also ran a popular Iron Age Banquet Experience in their largest roundhouse, where guests were entertained with Celtic Music and sword fighting, before enjoying typical Iron Age Fare for dinner.   
Costumes were available for those who wanted to immerse themselves even further in living history.  
Last year, to her delight, Meg had been able to afford adding a small exhibition hall to the main booking office bordering the gates to the Iron Age village. Now visitors could read about the Iron Age artefacts on display, some lent to Meg by universities and other small Museums, some small items which she and Mike had found on university digs and been allowed to keep, on the proviso that they would lend them back to the university if ever needed.  
Meg’s strappy leather sandals made no noise on the laminate floor as she walked down the short, wide exhibition hall. Glass cases covered the walls on both sides, but it wasn’t their contents which interested her.  
She continued down the hall towards the wall-mounted display case, which held her most precious treasure.  
Her heart fluttering as it always did when she looked upon her favourite find, Meg took a deep breath as she used her set of museum keys to open the glass case. Lifted the hinged lid, she bared the simple gold torque. Bracketed by thick gold hoops at either end, the curved torque had been created from a thick band of gold, inscribed with strange symbols. The symbols fascinated her so because no one from the university had been able to understand them.  
Meg took a pair of plain white gloves from her pocket and donned them, before very carefully lifting the torque from the velvet cushion it rested on. In the years she’d owned it, she’d never tired of gazing upon it. In places the gold had eroded and dulled, but in other stretches the material remained as shiny and new as if it had been forged that very day.  
She ran her gloved finger reverently along the long band of the torque and over the symbols that no one from the university she’d attended had ever been able to translate. It was finally decided, before the torque was released back into Meg’s care, that the symbols had been made by a child who had borrowed the torque and doodled on it, or that they were part of a complicated ritual which required more than one torque.  
Meg didn’t really believe the doodle story, but neither did she have a satisfactory explanation for the markings.  
As she held the torque and gazed upon it, her gaze lifted to the mirror above the glass torque case. Beside the mirror hung half a dozen cheap plastic torques, which children and tourists liked to hang around their necks, whilst fancying themselves ancient Britons.  
Suddenly overcome by the desire to hang the ancient torque around her neck, Meg hesitated. I shouldn’t. Academics and historians alike would be horrified by the potential for bare skin on the precious artefact.  
And yet still the gold called to her, the markings on the torque seemingly warming her skin through the cotton gloves she wore.   
“I can’t,” she told it, and yet it continued to sing its siren song to her. Wear me, wear me, feel me against your skin.  
Wear me.  
Meg closed her eyes. How many years had she owned this torque? Who would know if she wore it once? After all, many people had arguably worn it during the Iron Age in ancient Britain. What did one more neck hurt?  
Hoping she wouldn’t regret it, but giving in to the desire thrumming through her blood, Meg gently eased the golden hoops at either end of the torque apart and slipped it on to her slender neck, turning it so the terminuses sat in the right place.  
The strangest sensation crept up her neck where the engravings touched her skin – a sort of itching, warm burning, like the stoking of a fire. She had a sudden whiff of roasted meat; her skin prickled with the poke of hay. She felt sleepy.  
“Meg?”  
Mike’s voice jerked her from her unexpected reverie and she whipped the torque off, sealing the glass case again just as her business partner appeared in the exhibition gallery.  
“Playing with the torque again? You love that thing.”  
Meg smiled as she turned the key, locking the torque away again. “I just have a feeling about it, you know.”  
Mike slung his arm companionably around her shoulders, his moustachioed face smiling down at her. “You know what I have a feeling about? The pub.”  
Her evening of a bath and a book twisted away. “I don’t know.”  
“Come on.” Mike squeezed her. “You know you want to drink the pain of the day away. Two hundred school kids! All their endless questions, my God. I need a pint. Or three, and some decent grub. Lock up here and let’s go, it’s only over the road.”  
Meg looked up into his kind, broad face. How could she say no to him, her friend, who’d put in as many hours and as much money as she had into their business, their dream?  
Besides, their Iron Age Experience only offered tea, coffee and small snacks, so Meg and Mike often directed customers to the pub for a bigger meal. In return the pub offered them both and their staff twenty-five percent off all food. It would be cheaper than a takeaway.  
“All right. I could do with a glass of wine myself, and a meal. And maybe a hot chocolate brownie for afters. With that melty sauce. Yum.”

* * *

Kit woke with a pounding headache and a dry mouth. The torque around his neck itched, and he lifted it to scratch his collarbone. His back ached, but when he stretched, the wolf pelt under him felt different. Smoother, softer somehow.   
He opened his eyes to darkness. As his vision adjusted, he saw that the roof had changed. Some idiot had flattened it and covered it with a whitewash of chalk and bone. How had they smoothed it so flat?  
His heart stuttered as he took in more of his surroundings. He groped for his sword, but didn’t find it. And the floor, far from being earth strewn with rushes, felt soft to his touch, like the wool his mother wove.  
Gods, what had happened to his dwelling?  
Kenna. It was the only explanation that made sense. He’d fallen asleep wearing the torque with magic words on, and now he’d woken elsewhere.   
He took in the fine surroundings. With such a luxurious bed underneath him, and strange objects around the large space, he could only guess – Roman? Messengers had frequently come from neighbouring villages with tales of how rich the Romans were, what largesse they had. The colours and luxury of their belongings.  
If Kenna had endangered his people by sending Kit into the hands of the Romans, he’d see her hanged, he didn’t care how old she was.  
At the foot of the bed sat what looked to be a trunk; his father had made something similar for his mother to keep her linens and dresses in. Kit sat up, moved to the end of the bed, and lifted the lid. Inside, as he expected, were colourful cloths, some thick like the woollen tunics he habitually wore, some very smooth and fine. He held one up, but the lack of light meant he couldn’t discern much. Their softness meant one of two things: richness, or a woman, maybe both.  
Kit closed the lid of the trunk and lay back down on the inexplicably soft bed. He teased the terminuses of the torque apart and slid it off his neck, resting its weight on his stomach. Maybe removing it would send him back to his home.  
Nothing happened. The dark room remained as it was.  
He waited a few moments, listening for any sound which might give him a clue as to where he’d woken.   
Nothing. The stillness engulfed him. No barking dogs, no laughing children.  
With a sigh, Kit returned the torque to his neck. It didn’t itch or warm like before. He frowned, running his finger over the markings at the back. Maybe its magic had been exhausted.  
He jerked upright as the most horrible sound filled the room. He had never heard its like in his lifetime.   
The Gods have come to take their payment for the magic Kenna bestowed upon me.  
He frantically looked around the strange space, searching for anything he might use as a weapon. He’d have given three of his father’s best cattle for a sword in that moment. Whilst the clamour continued, Kit spied a long object that looked like a tree branch, but more streamlined. He hopped off the bed, still stark naked except for his torque, and grabbed it.  
The object felt smooth against his hands, and not very heavy. It would not be very much of a weapon, but it would have to do.  
He braced himself to take a swing as a creak sounded from a few feet away.

* * *

 

One pint had indeed turned into three, with a supper of fish and chips and a chocolate brownie to follow, and plenty of laughter and conversation. By the time she and Mike parted ways at the pub, after she’d lost three games of darts to him in a row, Meg was feeling decidedly merry and mellow. In the relative darkness of the May evening, Meg wandered across the road back to her apartment.  
She loved this view: looking down into the Iron Age Experience, seeing the thatched roundhouses poking up into the sky. Hers. She’d dreamed of owning something like this for years, and sometimes she hugged the pleasure to herself, giddy.  
Meg took the ring of keys from her belt and unlocked the big iron gates that protected the Iron Age Experience from curious night-time passers-by. Closing it behind her, the creak of iron disturbing the quiet of the otherwise still night, she headed down the short gravel path to the long stone cottage which served as the booking office, the new small exhibition hall, and upstairs, her apartment.  
Back when Mike and Meg had ploughed all their cash, plus a small business loan and their arts funding grant into the Iron Age Experience, it made sense for Meg to live upstairs in the cottage, after all, she’d sold her house to generate further funds.  
Mike had inherited his home from his grandparents, and they agreed that he should keep it – in the event that the business failed, Meg would be able to move in with him for a short term.  
Meg was thankful every day that their business had enough interest to keep going. They were slightly in the red due to their renovation of the banquet roundhouse, but according to bookings, the debt would be paid comfortably within two months.  
Happy, she let herself into the cottage via the back entrance. The stairs led straight up to her apartment, meaning she didn’t need to traverse the whole exhibition area to get to her bed. She thought briefly about going to visit the torque again, then shook her head. It would still be there in the morning. She picked up the small pile of letters on the welcome mat, and started up the old wooden stairs.  
Meg reached her apartment door and fiddled for her keys. A faint ringing could be heard from the other side – she’d left her phone in her bedroom. She probably had a few messages.  
Darkness greeted her. She flipped on the light switch in the small hallway, set the post down on the table by the door, and headed straight for her bedroom. The door stood ajar and the ringing came from inside.  
Without having to look, Meg reached up and flicked on the lamp which sat on a small piebald mosaic table by the door.  
Two things happened at once.  
Her phone stopped ringing.  
She saw a naked man standing in front of her bed, wielding a poster tube as if it were a sword.  
“What the hell-”  
The man made to rush her, then stopped still, his face caught between anger and confusion.  
And he wore her torque.  
“Thief,” she muttered under her breath, then sniffed the air for alcohol. A few months ago, one of the security guards – now an ex-employee – had gotten drunk on the job and broken into the cottage, falling asleep on Meg’s sofa. She expected this was a similar situation, but this man had stolen her torque. He was in for a world of unhappiness. “How dare you steal my torque!”  
The naked man touched his free hand to the torque, which, now Meg looked at it closer, looked much shinier than before. “This is mine. State your purpose here.”  
He must be drunk, he talks like a man out of time. “My purpose is to go to sleep, because I live here. You need to get out. The next time I see you, your locker will be cleaned out and you’re fired.”  
He squinted at her. What a shame he’d broken into her home and stolen her beloved torque; he really was arrestingly handsome.   
Dark-chocolate hair, shaggy and collar-length, tumbled across his face and grazed his shoulders. There seemed to be acres of it; soft, slightly curly and looking infinitely silky, very touchable. A thin swathe of stubble graced his top lip and what looked to be a stubborn jaw.  
He had plenty of muscles on his lean physique – he certainly put time in at the gym. And where else, she wondered, trying not to enjoy the sheer hard planes of his body. A long scar bisected the whorls of hair covering the centre of his chest. It looked long healed, but the anger of the scar spoke of true violence.  
Meg had never seen the like on any of the re-enactors her business hired. Sure, career re-enactors had scars sometimes, from a hard whack with repro steel, but his looked like real scars, inflicted in the heat of battle.  
She had the strangest urge to trace his scars with her fingers; to press her lips to them and soothe away his pain.  
Shut up. That’s just his sheer hotness speaking to you.  
Despite his gorgeousness, he was nothing but an intruder and a thief.   
Why was he naked, though? Perhaps she’d find his clothes around her apartment.  
Her gaze dropped to his waist, perfectly in proportion to the rest of his body, slightly narrowed by what was surely a jaw-breaking fitness regime. She couldn’t stop herself from looking lower. My, it certainly wasn’t cold in her bedroom, if the size of his… appendage was any clue.  
Her face flushed and she jerked her gaze back to his, realising he had seen her looking at the most intimate part of his body. The hint of a smile tugged at his lips.  
Meg held out her hand. “Give me back my torque.”  
His lips thinned. “It is mine. The wise woman gave it to me.”  
Oh, boy. He really was trollied. “I bet she sells beer, doesn’t she, this wise woman?”  
“Beer.” He rolled the word around as if it was foreign to him – which Meg knew it was most certainly not, as his pleasingly deep voice had a slight northern cant to it. He was local, all right. Probably had just been to a local pub, too. “She only gave me the torque.”  
At the mention of the necklace, Meg’s temper fired up a notch. “The torque you stole, you mean.”   
She lunged for him, but he wielded the poster tube and she stopped short. They stared at each other, neither one willing to move.  
Meg’s phone was across the room – too far to get to and phone the police. Strangely though, despite the intruder’s theft of her torque, though, and his sword-stance with her poster tube, she didn’t feel in danger.   
“I stole nothing,” he insisted, his gaze holding hers, his eyes a captivating shade of burnished amber. She felt caught in them for a moment, like a moth drawn to a flickering flame.  
“You don’t believe me? I’ll show you, then. Follow me.” Without waiting to see if he would heed her command, Meg left the bedroom and marched down the hall, then unlocked her apartment and proceeded down the wooden stairs. Two doors greeted her – one to the outside world and another to the exhibition area where the torque was stored – or used to be stored.  
The sound of his feet on the wooden stairs confirmed that the stranger was following her. She glanced up, and saw that he’d taken the grey linen throw from the foot of her bed, and had knotted it around his hips.   
Shame.  
Throwing off the inappropriate surge of lust, Meg unlocked the door to the exhibition hall and flicked on the light. She stepped inside the turned to her right.   
“There! I can prove it, the torque is-”  
The torque sat quietly in its glass exhibition case. There was no trace of lock tampering.  
The stranger leaned against the doorjamb, arms folded across his incredible chest. “Please do show me how I broke your box and stole your torque,” he said lazily, one eyebrow raised.  
She stared at him aghast, trying to force words on to her tongue, but none came.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The dark copper shade of the v-neck t-shirt accentuated the arresting colour of his eyes. The jeans fit him like a second skin. She wanted to look at his ass.
> 
> No she didn’t!
> 
> God.

Kit had no idea what the Gods, or Kenna had done to him. When the strange woman had flooded the room with incredibly bright sunlight, he had tried to speak to her – but his words had spilled out garbled. It reminded him of Old Man Alaric, whose words had been stolen by the Gods as punishment for when Alaric cursed them for a bad harvest.  
But the woman – and what a woman, her russet rope of hair licked by fire, her eyes blue like a summer lake, her small face with pointed chin reminding him of the legendary Fae folk – seemed to understand the garbled nonsense that came out of his mouth in place of the words he wanted to expel.  
In contrast to her beauty, the woman was a shrew. She insisted that he had stolen from her – he, the son of a Chieftain, respected by all nearby villages, sought after for marriage matches with Chieftains’ daughters.   
As if he would stoop so low.  
It did seem strange to Kit, though, that she had a very similar torque to his.  
As she looked between her torque and his, sputtering with confusion, Kit walked towards the object she’d pointed so angrily at. Under his feet, the ground felt so soft –like crushed grass. How was that possible, with walls on either side?   
The same idiot who had whitewashed the roof “upstairs” had been at work here, too. Kit glanced back at the woman. Maybe she knew no good craftsmen. He couldn’t understand how the smoke from her cooking fire escaped her dwelling. Maybe she didn’t know how to cook.  
The sheet of wool Kit had hung over himself felt soft against his thighs as he studied the woman’s torque. It looked so old, as if it had been buried for many, many years. The markings were almost identical to the markings on the piece he wore around his neck.  
Almost as if they were one and the same.  
Impossible, because that would mean that Kit now stood in the hereafter-  
The possibility shook him so deeply that he cut the thoght off, unable to countenance such an event.  
The woman appeared next to him. “It must be a replica,” she declared angrily. “Where did you get it?”  
Her stubbornness irritated him. “I have already told you-”  
She poked him in the chest. Hard, for such a small thing. “And I’ve told you – which online shop? Medieval merchant? Darkblade? Or was it a custom piece?”  
He didn’t understand any of the strange sounds that tumbled from her lips – delicious looking lips, the shade of the dye his mother used for her favourite tunics, ones she wore on special feast days. “You continue to question the word of the son of Caderyn the Elder? You would pay a high price for that in my village.”  
She said a word that Kit was pretty sure was meant to lay a curse upon him, such as she bit it out. She poked him again. “Listen pal, you’re no more the chief than I am a movie star.” She poked him again. “You’re just a drunk security guard who passed out on my bed.”  
“I assure you, I am not under the influence of honeymead.” He folded his arms over his chest, wishing for a sword, so he could strike her with the blunt end and put her to sleep for a while. “I have obviously been sent here to save my village, and I believe I am in the unfortunate situation of needing your help.”  
“Oh, I’ll help you,” she sneered into his face, “all the way to the door. And give me that throw back before you leave, I’ll need to wash it.”  
Her peevish nature was a real shame, Kit reflected, as her beauty was so arresting. “You’re not listening to me.”  
She poked him again. “You’re not listening to me. As of this moment, you’re not longer employed here. And I’ll be calling the-”  
The woman didn’t get any further. Kit put the only weapon he had at his disposal – himself – to use, and yanked her close, slanting his mouth over hers to put paid to her words. Since he couldn’t hit her, it was the only way he could think of to shut her up.

* * *

 

Meg could only stand stone-still for what seemed like long minutes when the stranger grabbed her and kissed her. How very dare he! How dare he assume she’d want to kiss a drunkard who’d passed out on her bed, of all places-  
Two realisations slammed into her at once.  
He didn’t taste of ale.  
He kissed really well.  
She’d expected a total assault on her senses, and boy, had she received it. His mouth plundered hers in a deeply passionate kiss, and then abruptly, when she yielded, opening her lips under his, he gentled his attack, his lips whispering over hers. Nobody had kissed her so tenderly in such a long time that Meg’s heart fluttered.   
Then she came to her senses and shoved him away – but not before noticing how much of a hard wall his chest was. He seriously worked out.  
As she looked at him, it occurred to Meg that she really didn’t remember hiring him. But she or Mike must have.   
“Get your hands off me, you oaf!”  
The stranger folded his arms over his chest. “I am no oaf, I am Caderyn the Younger, son of the village Chieftain.” He threw her a surprisingly dazzling smile. “My family calls me Kit.”  
“Well, Kit, I sure as hell don’t remember hiring you, but as of this moment I’m firing you. Get back to whatever hovel or drinking establishment you crawled out of.”  
He didn’t move. Having felt the wall of his chest earlier, Meg wasn’t entirely sure she would be able to move him herself without help.  
She could call the police. But –   
But she didn’t feel like he was a threat to her.   
Hopefully her gut wasn’t leading her astray.  
“I told you, the wise woman from the village sent me here. I need your help.”  
She rolled her eyes. “You need my help to leave. If you’re not drunk, then you’re crazy, and I don’t hire drunks or crazy people.”  
She pointed at the door.  
He looked at it and then back at her. Good Lord, did he have to be so distractingly gorgeous? And her throw hung jauntily on his hips, looking for any moment as if it might slip down and reveal everything.  
Meg did want it to fall to the floor. She’d looked at him when she’d first entered her bedroom, but she hadn’t had a chance to look – okay, ogle – since.  
What’s wrong with me?  
“You haven’t phoned the… what did you call them? The police yet,” he began.  
Meg tutted. “As if you don’t already have a long relationship with them.”  
He ignored her. “Which leads me to believe you that you might actually be interested in hearing what I have to say.”  
Considering his words, Meg sighed. She did want to know more about the torque, and despite the kiss, and the poster tube he’d wielded as a weapon, she genuinely didn’t believe he was a threat to her. “Fine. But you’ve got to put some clothes on. Where are yours?”  
“I took them off in my dwelling, before I went to sleep by the fire,” he said matter-of-factly.  
Of course he had.  
“Fine. I’ll find you something to wear.” She was fairly sure that the re-enactors kept a large trunk of spare clothes in the staff area, in case of their own belongings becoming sodden by mud or rain. In the north of England it was a pretty regular occurrence. “Come with me.”  
Sincerely hoping she wasn’t having a funny turn or a total lapse in judgement, she let him follow her to the staff kitchen-cum-storage area. On the far side of the kitchen stood a large row of tall black metal shelves.   
Meg reached for a trunk on the third shelf.  
“Let me.” Without asking, Kit leaned over her, giving her an amazing view of his supremely attractive biceps and lower arms, and took the trunk down for her. “Here. It looked heavy.”  
It had been. “Thank you,” Meg said grudgingly. She didn’t want to like him. He’d broken in to her home, for God’s sake. What sort of person did that, and then afterwards, stayed around to help with the heavy lifting?  
But, but. As yet what had he stolen? She still had her torque. Okay, he’d given her quite a fright, but… her curiosity about him overrode her desire to call law enforcement.  
She opened the trunk, focusing on the task and deliberately not looking at Kit. His presence seemed to fill the entire room, although the space was fairly long, even though not that wide.   
Folded linen trousers and tunic-style shirts greeted her, as well as underwear and normal clothing. Her re-enactors had certainly been thorough, thank goodness. She grabbed a few size large v-neck t-shirts – Kit had broad shoulders – and a pair of jeans that looked about right. Let him fashion his own belt if they were too large.  
Adding a pair of boxers, she threw them at him. “Go put these on.” She pointed to the staff toilet, at the end of the storeroom.  
“Thank you. I shall return your garment.” Still wearing the throw, he headed for the room she pointed at.  
She watched him struggle with the handle for a few long moments. He looked utterly perplexed with the chromed object, almost as if…  
Almost as if he had come from the past.  
Meg shut that down.   
Obviously he was crazy – that explained a lot.  
Or he was just a proper “method” actor and didn’t want her to see him drop his act.  
Eventually, whilst she watched, incredulous, he did figure it out, looking amazed as he did so.  
Meg shook her head and busied herself tidying away the trunk of spare clothes. The world was full of crazy people, it seemed. Just when she thought she had seen it all, in popped Kit, son of the Chieftain of the village of wherever.  
She couldn’t wait to see what Mike made of this in the morning.  
Knowing his obsession with history, he'd probably go crazy for this guy. Mike was the only person Meg had ever met who would probably prefer to live in the past. For herself, Meg loved the study of Celtic Britain, but did not have any desire to experience it first-hand.  
Suddenly a thought occurred to her. When she’d let herself in to her side entrance, the lock had been intact.  
She rushed down the exhibition corridor and out to the main door of the Iron Age booking office.  
Locked. The bar across the door remained intact. No tampering.  
How on Earth had he gotten in without… without moving anything? Before going to the pub, Meg and Mike had checked the locks a few times, and the windows, as they always did. Nothing had been out of place.  
Unless Kit had snuck in before they had left….  
It seemed highly unusual.   
Maybe Mike would recognise Kit/the madman when he came by in the morning – unless she’d gotten rid of the stranger by then. She glanced at the clock. It was quarter to midnight – she wouldn’t bother Mike now unless the situation got serious, and even then, there was the police as an alternative.  
She heard a noise behind her and Kit appeared through the door, holding the folded throw in his hands. He offered it to her. She took it, feeling strangely aroused, knowing it had been next to his skin and other well-endowed parts of his body. “Thanks.”  
“You’re welcome.”  
She looked up and met his dark amber gaze. Maybe putting him in proper clothing had been a mistake. The dark copper shade of the v-neck t-shirt accentuated the arresting colour of his eyes. The jeans fit him like a second skin. She wanted to look at his ass.  
No she didn’t!  
God.  
“Are you going to tell me this wild story, then?” Meg made herself say, ashamed that her voice squeaked in the middle of the sentence.  
Kit folded his arms. His muscles flexed under the soft fabric of the t-shirt. Meg should have put him in a potato sack. “’Tis no story.”  
“It bloody well is. But I’ll hear it all the same.” She paused, somehow wanting something domestic and comforting to do amidst this… madness. “Want a drink?”  
“Please.”  
She gestured to one of the wooden chairs in the staff kitchen area. She wasn’t taking him back to her apartment, as much as she’d rather be there. At least here in the kitchen she had access to a) a phone, and b) heavy objects to hit him with, if he tried anything.  
He sat while she boiled the kettle, wondering about the trajectory of the boiling water should he attempt to attack her from behind.   
Although it didn’t seem his style.  
“Tea or coffee?”  
He looked confused. “I don’t think I’ve had either of those before.”  
She scowled. “You’re having tea. You’re a Northerner, from your voice anyway, and I’ve never met someone from up here who doesn’t like tea.”  
He didn’t answer that, and she congratulated herself on having the last word as she made the tea, deliberately not looking back at him. Not looking because she knew his broad shoulders, handsome face, and those gorgeous brown eyes would fill the staff kitchen.  
She finished making the tea and carried the mugs over, adding the Tupperware container of digestives. She was going to need some sugar if she wanted to hear what would undoubtedly be a long and ridiculous story from this man.  
Why are all the gorgeous ones stir-crazy?  
He took the drink by the body of the mug, avoiding the handle, and wrapped his hands around it, seemingly unsurprised that it was hot. Shame. Meg was hoping he’d have burned his tongue. At least then he wouldn’t have been able to kiss-attack her again.  
Even though a little voice inside her head told her that she’d liked it.  
Dammit. She’d loved it.


End file.
